


Queen of the Night, The Sword of Darkness

by INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon



Series: Trellis and Vine [5]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Attempted Escape, Epic Battles, F/M, Nyx with Swords, Old Gods, Power Dynamics, Rebellion, Single combat, Woman Wielding Weapons, prison break - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon/pseuds/INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon
Summary: A companion piece to Dread Curiosities Chapters 12 and 13.When Kronos attempts to escape from his imprisonment, neither Hecate nor Hades is enough to stand against him.Nyx takes matters into her own hands: it's the Queen of Night's turn to kick some Titan ass.(Inspired by a marvelous fan art - included in fic and cited in notes - and written to celebrate Wick'd reaching 6k hits)
Relationships: Erebus/Nyx (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Series: Trellis and Vine [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676242
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Queen of the Night, The Sword of Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> There are components to this particular scene that are only found in Dread 12 and 13. Please have read those chapters.
> 
> While this is a "battle" scene, it's by no means George RR Martin levels of blood and gore and violence. However, it may not be for everyone. 
> 
> As always, feel free to not read. The choice is yours. 
> 
> The piece of fan-art that inspired this work was concocted by the wonderful salboot on the official Lore Olympus discord. Their twitter is @salbot7. Thank you for the fic-fuel, Sal my dear!
> 
> Enter for badass Nyx with a sword, little ones!
> 
> (Many thanks to my Rissa for the late-night sudden-inspo beta assist. You da behst, my dear....)

The cavern was cool and dark, comfortable for them both as they lay side by side on the bed of furs. His breathing was easy, steady, untroubled for the moment by anything more than the swirling touch of his dreams along the edges of her waking mind. She petted over his crinkly hair, smoothing the stragglers even though they'd be back to their funny business again soon enough. 

The earth shook again, and her consort shuddered in her arms, his wings trembling and his knees bending as if he would attempt to crawl away though deep in his sleep he remained.

She tightened her arms around him, felt her power grow as she increased the connection between her soul and his, and breathed a little more deeply herself as her beloved relaxed beneath her influence.

She would not let her love fear this tyrant again.

* * *

Hecate raced backward over the stony plain, small jars of powders and oils heavy in the bag hanging from her shoulder as she dug her hand into it once more. A triangular amberglass vial found its way into her fingers; she flung it hastily before her, watching the powder beginning its work on the ground as the Titan advanced toward her. The soil bubbled, turning tarry and slag, but she’d misjudged the distance yet again. The Titan’s foot easily missed the patch of enchanted dirt, pursuing her still.

The earth shook, and the air shivered as he hissed, defiant and scornful of her attempts to modify the environment with magic-crafted hindrances.

"Little whelp, who are you to deny me…? You, who refused the power of your birthright and remain in this pitiful shell, scorning your strength, and to what end…?"

She spat upon the ground as he lunged, his enormous foot nearly too close to where she had been standing. She rolled over the ground as his hand swiped through the space over her head; a waft of air that smelled  _ brown _ curled her lip as she sprang back to her feet and faced the Titan again.

"You will find no freedom even if you succeed in this rebellion, Kronos! Trapped, forever, by one far more powerful than you could ever be! It's futile, you should give up this madness!"

"When I'm done with you, whelp, and my half-made  _ son _ , then I'll deal with my blasted uncle! When I’m done with the lot of you, even the Cosmos itself will fear my name!"

Hecate ran again as the Titan-lord's power reached for her very soul, her bag of potions and spells left behind and crushed as Kronos once more rose in thundering pursuit….

* * *

"Mother, what is going on?!"

"Hypnos, get in here, and be quiet about it!"

She shifted, motioning her second son to take her place at her consort's side. Her son's eyes followed her as she rose to her feet, marking the tendrils of darkness that trailed from her wingtips, her fingers, from the drape of her robe's shoulder bands.

"Mother, what have you - "

"Hush. Just keep him asleep."

"But - "

" _ No!  _ Do as I say, Hypnos. Keep him sleeping." With a sweep of her arm, she forged a weapon made of borrowed power. "It's my turn to whoop my nephew's ass."

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

Hecate pressed her back to the cliff-face, staring up at her doom. His eyes were dark-bright, glinting with his imminent victory, and she felt again the song of the power she had never claimed, reaching for her with soft caresses that promised reprieve from her fears, cessation of sorrow and worry and lack….

_ No…. _

_ The time of Titanic Ones is over…. _

_ Leave me be; I have made my choice…. _

She took a breath and her eyes drifted closed.

_ My choice, but it need not mean my life! _

She dove in the next heartbeat, her carefully-bound magic forging into a hand-blade as she rolled past Kronos’ foot. A slash, a digging stroke, and she was past the howling tyrant and running once more. 

Ice flared between her shoulder-blades, and a nova of starstuff exploded in her eyes.

The ground was hard and soft and hard and soft until the rock that caught her behind her left ear sang its haunting song of sleep….

* * *

She raced through the sky, the scents of hate and rage and pain as pungent as chokeweed in the latest summers. Her wings forced the air to cradle her enormous frame, muffled thunder signalling her approach to any who would dare take heed. 

It had been long and longer still since she stood amongst the trees and danced upon the plains and tamed the Chaos-spawned monstrosities that had inhabited the earlier years alongside herself and her consort and their sibs. Her weapons then had been whip and shield; today, she would wield blades and break this youngling with so much bloodlust singing through his veins….

She spied her prey and angled for the challenge. He was distracted, and she was downwind:

He would not be able to defend his flesh from her thorny blade of darksome-borrowed power.

The smaller azure godling, the one her consort had long defended from the shadows, battled the one whose seed had granted him life, standing before another cerulean form prone and broken against an earth-tearing boulder. The little good boy her consort had formed of his own heart and power was not so little anymore: the hound darted and lunged, three gaping maws full of fangs and courage doing their best to keep the tyrant occupied. 

It was not enough.

A shimmer-trail and the hound limped to one side; another blaze, and the one they would have called  _ Son _ collapsed, clutching his white-haired head in his hands.

She shrieked as she cut through the smoking mists, driving the hate-filled child before her with darksome power and whipping slashes of her mind-crafted blade.

He tried to resist, but she left him no quarter: when he ducked an overhead blow, she kicked to throw his balance off once more; if he tried to claw at her in turn, she slammed her wings on the air, blasting him away in the wind and magic; his blows landed on nothing, while her blade cut him and battered him and forced him farther and farther over the battlefield, away from the young ones barely stirring from their distress. She could feel them, did not need to turn to see them struggling back to their feet. 

She snarled and called forth another blade: this was taking far too long.

Glaring eyes showed true fear now.

_ Good…. _

She pressed the attack still, redoubling her speed and further pinpointing her prey’s weaknesses: a jolt in his step  _ there _ , a wince when he raised his left arm in  _ that _ way, a grunt when he bent to the right. She left him no opportunity to mount a counter or defense, and finally,  _ finally _ , his knees hit the soil and she crossed her blades of shadow behind his neck, the star-sharp edges kissing his skin so that ichor beaded up beneath the sweat.

She growled, and the earth of her consort’s landscapes echoed her triumph.

She put her knee on her nephew’s spine, forcing him toward the soil; he bent, and she sunk her blades into the dirt, trapping his neck beneath their shear-sharp frame. A cloud of dust puffed up from his grunted exhalations, and she leaned further over his back to whisper in his ear.

_ “You are done, nephew: your choices made, and their fruits ripened on the vine. You are done, and you will cease this rebellion and no more defy your son and King. You thought yourself trapped when my consort bound you here in justice…? _

_ “Kronos child, if you attempt escape with one more breath, I’ll trap you so deeply within your mind with all the nightmares of every age to keep you company and you will know why it is the mortals fear the night and dark so dreadfully. _

_ “Who do you think it is who gave them all those wonderfully-frightening ideas in the first place…? _

_ “Just who is the first boogey-woman, hmmmm?” _

He trembled, and she laughed blackly in her throat. She straightened, leaving her blades crossed over her nephew’s neck, and she shot into the sky.

Her consort would be waking soon, and he would be afraid if she were not there to hold him….

_ And I must return this borrowed power, too, before he wakes…. _

* * *

Hecate’s fingertips came away coated in golden shine when she prodded gently behind her left ear. She winced at the throbbing pain, but she clambered to her feet and stared over the rock-strewn plain at the spectacle before her.

Nyx poised over Kronos’ bent-and-bleeding form, the Titan’s neck pinned between two night-dark blades that could not have been made of any physical material: Hecate could feel the power fueling every iota of the gigantic twinned weapons, even over the distance separating her from the scene. Nyx’s wings  _ dripped _ with dark mist, and a halo of star-spattered void framed the crown of the Primordial’s head. And her eyes….

Those five eyes, so alien compared to any other being Hecate had ever encountered:

No longer red, they were each an abyss of space, a hollow of shadow and rage.

Hecate shivered, wrapping her arms around herself as the Primordial Queen of Night straightened and shot into the sky. Kronos remained pinned beneath the Night’s abandoned blades, and the Goddess of Magic jumped a little as Hades walked past her. She hadn’t realized he was even here….

Her King’s skin was as black as his father’s, streaked and spattered with nebula-blue and magma-red, and she feared him only a little less than she had feared the Tyrant in the moment when he struck her down.

But she knew she feared the Queen of the Night and her blades of shadow more than the two of them combined….

* * *

She shrank to fit within their cave as she landed upon the cliff-yard. She could see their son where she’d left him, sitting beside his father’s still-napping form. She smiled, and her son rose to a crouch, a wary look upon his face. 

“Mother, easy, he’s fine, we’re fine….”

_ …. I know that; why do you think I don’t know that…? _

She knelt beside her slumbering consort, her left wingtip brushing over the length of his torso. She sent the borrowed power through the contact, and a crushing weariness swamped her for a long moment as the last of the shadows left her soul.

She sighed, bracing her hands upon her thighs as she settled onto her haunches amidst the waves of dizziness. She smiled sheepishly at Hypnos, and her second son shuffled his wings in worry, his beautiful red-and-black wings….

“I’m fine, baby. We’ll be fine now. That bastard nephew of mine won’t hurt us anymore….”

Her son’s rainbow eyes narrowed, suspicious and wary still. “If it’s okay with you, Mother, I’ll stay for a while yet. I’ve missed you both….”

“.... Maybe that’s for the best, yes….” She yawned and laid down beside her Erebus, spreading her wing over his back even as his stretched in his sleep to layer over her hip and ass. “The manticores have been spawning, anyway; can always use an… extra… set of… eyes….”

She found sleep in the sound of her son chuckling….

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, obviously, 
> 
> THANK YOU ALL THAT HAVE HELPED WICK'D REACH 6K HITS! (And for Dread hitting more than 4100, ach, too much love, can't take it!)
> 
> And thanks again to Sal for that incredible piece of Nyx art!
> 
> Regarding Hecate in this and what Kronos says to her about her betraying her birthright - much of Greek mythos is open to interpretation due to the oral nature and wide-spread trading nature of the cultural origins. Some of the legends and stories have Hecate as not only the daughter of a Titan but a Titan herself. I brought that out a little here. I may do more with this in Dread later. We'll see. But that's why that was a component here - something new, a layer to our badass Witchy-woo....
> 
> I know y'all have probs been eagerly awaiting more Dread Curiosities. I know it's been a solid couple weeks since I updated that one. I'm sorry - work, and Muses focusing elsewhere....
> 
> But I'm gon' give it all I got to get y'all some Dread this week! Here's hoping!
> 
> For now, comment moderations are still in effect.


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